Hearts On Fire (Heart's Revenge Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  About Cole

  HEARTS ON FIRE

  Copyright: Cole Jaimes

  Published: JANUARY 2016

  The right of Cole Jaimes to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please notify the author at [email protected] immediately. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at www.colejaimes.com

  Chapter One

  Essie

  Fucking the enemy was supposed to be delicious revenge.

  It was supposed to bring him to his knees, have him at my beck and call. Ruin him for all other women. As it turns out, Aidan Callahan gave me the best sex of my life and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since. And the bastard hasn’t called me once.

  I envisioned that I was going to charm the shit out of him. We’d go out to the highly pretentious restaurant he picked, we’d suffer through some awkward conversation, he’d take me back to his place and I’d show him how a real woman screwed. Then he would be mine to control. Yeah, not so much.

  He was the one in control.

  He was the one who charmed me.

  I completely forgot about Vaughn. I mean, how could I have done that? He’s been the only reason I’ve been surviving the past few years. And as soon as I sit down to dinner with a hot guy, I abandon him? That is such bullshit.

  It would have been easy if he’d defended his asshole brother. If he’d harped on about what an awesome guy Alex was and how it was a travesty that he’d died so young, I could have maintained focus. It wouldn’t have mattered how hot, charming or good in bed he was if that had been the case. But no. When he spoke about the man who killed my brother, he seemed angry and hurt. He plainly said he and Alex didn’t get along when he was alive. There was no way he was faking either. He looked so awkward, like he couldn’t wait to talk about something else.

  I never thought I’d be capable of it, but somehow a small part of my black soul began to empathize with him at that point. Empathy is not something that comes naturally or easy to me. Putting myself in other people’s shoes generally leads to more pain—unnecessary, pointless pain—and I have enough of my own to last a lifetime. But with him, it was different. I was connected to pain, I was a part of it, and disentangling myself from it was next to impossible.

  And then later, when the pain was gone, replaced by pleasure… Seeing pleasure on his face when he was inside me, experiencing the pleasure he brought me…it changed everything. And now I am fucking terrified.

  Sitting at Vaughn’s graveside this morning, things don’t seem any less scary. There’s a hollow comfort in coming here. I do it to pay my respects; I do it to keep his spirit alive. He’s not really here though—it’s just a headstone, his casket buried six feet under, and nothing else. I don’t believe in an afterlife. I don’t believe Vaughn’s spirit is here with me, affectionately shaking his head at the stories I tell him when I come visit. It’s just stone and dirt, decayed blood and bone, and my own guilt. My own guilt in spades.

  I trace my fingers over his name, deeply etched into the marble, wondering if he would have been married by now. Would he have had kids? He always said no way, he never wanted them, but I get the feeling that was just his youth speaking. He probably would have changed his mind once he found the right person. He would have made such a great dad. I try to picture what his kids might have looked like, but I can’t seem to summon up faces to the small ghosts I create in my mind. That makes me panic—even more so when I realize why. I can’t remember what Vaughn looked like from memory. I can’t picture his face exactly the way it was. I know innately the shape and definition of his features, but they’re all just pieces of a puzzle that I can’t seem to make fit together now. Not the way I used to, anyway.

  When I conjure his face in my mind these days, he’s not the smiling, mischevious, silly guy I knew and loved. He’s trapped in a car, pinned between panels of warped metal, bones slowly breaking as he’s crushed, the life flowing out of him in pools of blood on cold blacktop. Small shards of broken glass digging into his skin.

  I press my forehead against the headstone, screwing my eyes shut tight.

  I should have been there.

  I should have picked up the phone.

  I should have said goodbye.

  I should not have had sex with Aidan Callahan. The fucked up thing is, I think Vaughn would have liked Aidan. I think he and Aidan probably would’ve gotten on like a house on fire. If I’d met Aidan at any other time, in any other way, Vaughn would have been over the moon, and so would I. I wouldn’t be so fucked up. In this alternate reality, my brother would still be alive, after all. If he’d never have gotten into his truck that night. Alex Callahan would have crashed into someone else’s car and killed them instead.

  Jesus. I have to get out of here. I leave the cemetery, taking the long way around to reach the exit, avoiding the headstones belonging to Aidan’s brother and parents like I always do. I speed walk back to my apartment, almost running. By the time I get inside, I’m out of my breath and my heart is pounding. My blood is thrumming in my temples. Every time my mind starts to wander back to Aidan, a thread of excitement pulls taut inside me, teasing at my senses. I want to see him again. I want to see him again today. The Vaughn part of my brain rails against that, though, hates that I’m even thinking such things. I’m a pro at blocking out unwanted thoughts normally, but this time my brain won’t seem to comply. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  I won’t call him. I won’t get in touch. I won’t email or text or even think about him. At least not until I have a clearer idea of just what I’m going to do—how I’m going to proceed. I can’t let something like that happen again, I can’t let my guard down like that and get swept away. That’s not what this is about.

  This is about Vaughn. This is about justice. Good sex doesn’t change a thing.

  I repeat this to myself again and again on an endless loop. By the time my heart has stopped racing, I’ve almost managed to block out Aidan’s hands on my skin, his body on top of mine, his hot mouth teasing over my breasts. I’ve almost succeeded in forgetting the intensity of his fingers sliding inside me, and how amazing it felt when he wrapped his arms around me and held onto me tight as I came.

  Almost.

  Chapter Two

  Aidan

  I learned how to carve wood when I was living in Hawaii from this guy named Jim. Like me, he escaped the corporate life everyone expected him to embrace by moving to Honolulu to pursue his true passion—makin
g shit out of driftwood. I was intrigued at first. Why did it have to be driftwood? Why not regular wood from a hardware store? Jim explained that driftwood had a beautiful quality to it that freshly timbered stuff didn’t possess. It had been on a journey. Somehow, one day it had ended up in the ocean—god only knew how long it had spent there—and it had been tossed and tumbled by the waves, smoothing out its sharp edges, softening and mellowing it until washed up on shore somewhere, maybe thousands of miles away from where it began its journey. During his early morning expeditions to comb the beaches, Jim had found the wood, which made it personal to him, making him a part of the driftwood’s journey, too. He was quite philosophical about it.

  We bartered. I gave him surf lessons, and he taught me how to carve. Our arrangement worked out well. He was used to doing things with his hands but not so much with the rest of his body; I was used to doing things with my body but not creating things with my own two hands.

  This time, I’m using a piece of mango wood; I find myself working with it more and more these days. It smells beautiful. I love the grain and the faint greenish tinge to its ashy coloring. I’m not sure why exactly I’m carving her a horse—she didn’t express any particular affinity to them or anything—but it seems fitting. She reminds me of a wild horse.

  The other morning when she tiptoed out of my apartment like a goddamn cat burglar, I’d waited until midmorning when I couldn’t stand it anymore, and then I’d snatched up my cellphone and typed out a message:

  Hey. Sorry I didn’t catch you this morning before you left. I had a lot of fun last night. We should do it again sometime?

  I even put a damned smiley face at the end. I think that’s what was the part that tipped me over the edge and had me deleting the entire message without sending it. This girl is a flight risk. If I so much as put one foot wrong, I’m never seeing her again, and I don’t want to risk that. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. She’s in my head twenty-four seven.

  It’s taken all of my strength to not call her, or go to her apartment and knock on her door. There’s nothing stopping me. I could do exactly that, but for some reason I know I should wait. Trying to tame a wild horse isn’t easy. You don’t just go up to the thing and muscle it into submission—you have to be patient, you have to let it come to you. I want to believe that she will. I want to believe that what I felt the other night was real.

  I’m pretty certain it was. I’ve never been one to project. I am not a person who sees things through rose-tinted glasses, and I sure as hell don’t ever let my imagination get the better of me. There’s no denying something happened between us, and it wasn’t just the sex. While it would certainly be nice to have her confirm it, I know it’s the truth already.

  But, anyway. I carry the small carving of a horse with me everywhere. Invariably, I work on it while I’m trapped on boring conference calls with people in South America and Asia, but this morning my office is silent as I steal a few moments to run my knife over the wood. This is exactly what I’m doing when the door opens and Bridget appears, looking less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than usual.

  “Hi,” she says. I put the carving down on my desk, smiling at her. Her eyes don’t meet mine immediately, though. She stares at the horse. “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Just a pet project.”

  “I didn’t know you carved wood.”

  “It’s a hobby. Something to help take my mind off things.”

  Concern flickers across her face. “Take your mind off things? Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

  “Are you stressed out about the GFS acquisition?”

  We’ve been working on the GFS acquisition for months now. Negotiations are finally coming to a close, but the truth is I couldn’t give a shit. Not right now, anyway. I still nod, though. “Perhaps a little.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be,” Bridget says. “Everything’s right on track.”

  “Happy to hear it. Is there something I can help you with, Bridge?”

  She looks uncomfortable, clasping her hands in front of her. Shrugging, she looks down at her shoes. “I—I was wondering what happened to you on Friday night.”

  Just the mention of Friday night sends a shiver down my spine. What does she know about Friday night? Did she see us? Did she see Essie and I at the restaurant?

  “What about Friday night?” I try to keep my tone neutral.

  “My grandparents’ surprise party? I told Dad you were coming and he kinda spread the word. Everyone was really looking forward to seeing you…”

  Shit. I knew I’d forgotten something. I shake my head. “Bridget, I’m so sorry. It completely slipped my mind. I’ve got a lot going on. I didn’t put it in my calendar. I just…I have no excuse. I just completely forgot. God, I’m such an asshole. ”

  Her face falls. Of course, I understand. Forgetting means I didn’t classify her family’s party as important. Forgetting means there was something else on my mind instead. I sigh. “I am really sorry.” I turn on the charm a little, giving her a rueful smile. By the grace of god, she returns it.

  “Ahh, it’s not important. There were lots of people there celebrating. And I think…maybe they’re going to be planning another, smaller get together some time soon. Maybe you could make it to that instead?”

  “I will,” I say. “Of course. Just make sure it’s on my calendar.”

  She makes a small squeaking sound, like she’s excited, then she hurries out of my office, closing my office door quietly behind her. I’d like to claim that it takes me at least fifteen minutes before my thoughts drift back to Essie Floyd, but I’ve never been great at lying. I spend an hour going over the numbers for the GSF acquisition—the company’s accounts have been examined with a fine tooth comb by at least five people before the files ever hit my desk, but I like to cast an eye over these things myself anyway—and then I spend two hours in a marketing meeting going over some rebranding. As soon as that’s over, I’m back in my office with a knife in my hand and Essie’s wooden horse in the other. The action of slowly running the blade over the already smooth lines of the horses back is rather meditative.

  I’m hardly feeling Zen, though. I’m pent up, frustrated, and growing harder by the minute as I replay Essie laying on her back, opening her legs for me. Being with her was seriously some of the best sex I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something. I felt something unique when I was with her—a connection, deep and strong, that I haven’t experienced with anyone else. My other sexual encounters have been notably intense, but in the same vein nothing more than lust. It’s shitty to say it, but I’ve never been even remotely invested in the women I’ve fucked before. I made sure they all knew what they were getting into well in advance. I never lied to any of them. I never strung them along, promising them an emotional as well as a physical relationship. But with Essie, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I’ve had some kind of perverse, utterly unhealthy attraction to her ever since the accident. I’ve had people take care of her, watch over her, make sure she’s safe. I’ve pored over photographs of her for years, trying to discern her mood from her facial expression. Mostly, she’s been angry. I’ve seen her look determined and fierce. I’ve seen her look wounded and sad. There’s one expression I hadn’t seen on her face until the other night, though, and that was peace. Contentment. I’d go so far as to say happy, even. The sight of her looking so calm and blissed out as she slept in my arms was something I won’t be forgetting in a hurry.

  I get the feeling she doesn’t normally sleep well. She didn’t stir once while I held her, and so I laid there and enjoyed the soft sound of her breathing while I stroked her hair, careful not to wake her.

  It was wonderful. It was perfect. It was something I never thought I’d want, and yet here I am, daydreaming like a love-struck teenager, unable to get my head back in the game. Pathetic.

  Still. I won’t call her. I won’t make a single move. This has to be her move. I know I
’m going to be waiting for a while for her to reach out, given the panic pouring off her the other morning when she left. It’s going to take her some time to come around to the idea that what happened between us was special. She is, by far, the most enigmatic, intriguing, and, ultimately, infuriating person I have ever met.

  ***

  The days go on. I take calls from clients, make a few calls of my own, sign off on some contracts, and talk to our lawyers. I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from asking about her. I’m sure the stuffy fucks from Mendel, Goldstein and Hofstadter would have no idea who I was talking about, anyway.

  Still, I can’t get her out of my head.

  The horse is getting close to being finished. It’s not the world’s finest work of art by any standards, but the wood is rich and has taken on a life that simply wasn’t there when I first laid the edge of my knife to it.

  I wish I could see her reaction when she first lays eyes on it. I wish I could hand deliver it to her, so I could tell her exactly what she means to me, even though we’ve only spent one night together. That would be an ill-conceived idea, though. A tiny voice in the back of my mind—perhaps reason? Maybe logic?—insists that Essie isn’t going to react the way I want her when she opens up the package I plan on sending to her. Will the girl who opens up the box be the Essie who I felt such a strong connection with the other night, or will it be the cold, calculating Essie I’ve been watching for so many years?

  Right now, I’d be hard-pressed to say either way.

  Chapter Three

  Essie

  I’ve accrued enough personal leave that I could probably go on sabbatical for the next six months and still get paid. And the thought of going into the office and Aidan maybe calling, and maybe me being the one who happens to pick up the phone, is just unbearable. That can’t happen. Just the thought of it actually does make me feel queasy. I call in sick instead.